People

Teams - Oleg
Tsygankov, Manager,
Mir EVA Office

Oleg Tsygankov served as the manager of the Mir EVA (extravehicular activity)
office, which is responsible for EVA technical support and Mir maintenance.
Tsygankov attended Kiev's Technological Institute. He received a Ph.D. in engineering
from Moscow Aviation Institute and a doctorate from Kharkov Aviation Institute.
He has worked for Energia since 1969.

In his Oral History, Tsygankov compared the Russian Orlan EVA suit with NASA's
spacesuit: "[During our years] of our mutual work with NASA, we've studied,
we've learned a great deal about different capabilities of Orlan and EMU [Extravehicular
Mobility Unit]. Something is better in one spacesuit, something is better in
another spacesuit, but from a standpoint of functionality, I would say they're
both equivalent. Orlan would allow a person as high as 185 centimeters-it's
about six feet, two inches-to walk into itů."

"Orlan is like a monostructure. Of course, there are some disadvantages in
this concept, but there are advantages as well. A person can get into Orlan
without anybody's assistance relatively quickly. You open the door from the
back like a refrigerator, you walk into the spacesuit and close it. Then you're
ready to do a spacewalk. Those are the special features of the Orlan."